VTB predicted a new race of banks for customers

The introduction of the Open API standard will change the rules of the game in the banking market, according to Sergey Bezbogov, Deputy head of VTB's technology unit.

In an interview with the newspaper Kommersant Technologies, he expressed the opinion that those players whose application opens more often, and not those whose cards are the main ones in users' wallets, will win the race for customers. The spread of the Open API will change the existing conditions of competition, when banks compete for customers through better conditions on cards and accounts, Bezbog continued. "If you have cards from several banks, then you have a first-choice card, and you spend most of your money on it. But when another bank has a better deposit interest rate or better cashback conditions, then you switch to its application," explained the top manager.

"In other words, the competition of applications is reaching a new level. There will be a new race in terms of customer paths," Bezbogov emphasized.

When banks use the Open API to open their customers' data to other credit institutions, they will actually give customers the opportunity to work with accounts of different banks through someone else's application, Bezbogov explained. "If I look at the VTB app, then VTB "owns" me, he writes me some recommendations, draws some beautiful pictures, gamifies me, promises cashbacks, and so on. That is, he works with me, regardless of which bank my money is in," the VTB representative emphasized.

The Open API (open software interface) is a technology standard that allows banks, with the consent of the client, to transfer his financial data to third—party companies in real time. The Bank of Russia has developed recommendation standards for the introduction of this technology in the financial market, and they may become mandatory in the future. Major banks, including VTB, are testing the exchange of their customers' data using the Open API.